Journey Of A Thousand Posts [TDIS]

I recently completed a thousand posts on Devils’ Workshop. I am not particular about numbers and was not aware of being so close to the milestone. Thanks to my friend and colleague R@xit for a timely tweet reminding me, that I was nearing a 1000 posts on DW. That tweet got me thinking about my journey as a professional blogger.

I am a professional blogger today but it was not something I had planned. At my previous job, I felt stuck. The routine work paid well but was boring and uninspiring. After a long day of work, I would spend hours trying to write a short story or update my personal blog. In other words I was falling in love with writing.

Vivek Jain a friend and later a rtCamper, read a couple of posts on my blog and introduced me to Rahul Bansal (the guy who started DW). He was looking for someone to run this blog. He was himself making his move from being a blogger to an entrepreneur and I was the lucky one who became Editor-in-Chief of this blog. 🙂

Lost in the Woods!

In the beginning I felt lost. I was blogging for a well established blog and in charge of it. It had a ready-made community around it. What did I know about Blogging when I took charge? Absolutely nothing.

I tried to write what I felt would be useful for others. Writing posts after posts, I felt sometimes like giving up blogging entirely. I felt totally lost in this new world. I could write well and I knew that but I started wondering if I could blog well.

Then one fine day, Google created their social experiment called Google Buzz. I simply did not like it and wondered why did Google bother with such a social network and worse embed it into my Gmail. I stepped out of my comfort zone as a blogger and wrote a blog post exclaiming why Google should have just bought Twitter instead of creating Buzz.

The post was not a very popular one but it was appreciated by people whose opinion I respected. With that post I could say, I found my blogging voice and no longer felt lost.

Think Different!

‘Think Different’ was a slogan for Apple’s advertising campaign. I am not a Apple fan particularly but a big fan of this quote. I might have written some decent posts but I still did not know if I could make a career in blogging. Blogging was fun but at times frustrating. Also you spend a lot of time alone, work at nights and read a lot. You end up reading a lot of things which are repetitive and sometimes your writing becomes predictable.

Then a movie named ‘Inception’ was released and one Sunday afternoon I toyed with the idea of comparing the movie’s storyline with the realities of social media. I did not like the post at all but it did start me off ‘thinking differently’ about my blogging. I ended up writing about how Inception the movie was similar to Blogging. This time the post became quite popular. 🙂

Making a Difference

As a blogger you can sometimes feel like you are not making much of a difference. Early this year wrote a post about the SpeakAsia scam. It was a Ponzi scheme and thousands were signing up. My post was well appreciated by many and some even changed their mind about investing in such a scheme. It was very pleasing to know that what I wrote was making a true difference to someone. That post made me learn to be proud of being a blogger and the difference they can make.

Thanks…

I learnt a lot of things as a blogger. I am not entirely proud of all my posts but not really embarrassed by any one of them either. There are many people who I would thank for making and shaping my blogging journey. Firstly I would thank Rahul , who gave me this opportunity to run Devils’ Workshop. It is a credit to him that he allowed me to make my own mistakes and learn blogging at my own pace, in my own space. I would have to thank all the bloggers I have worked with. Each one has taught me something importantly good.

After a thousand posts, I am nowhere close to being satisfied but I know what I want to do. The last thousand posts were very eventful and great fun, hopefully the next thousand will be even more eventful and fun.

About TDIS: Thank Devil Its Sunday [TDIS] are posts which are not the regular Dw fare about tutorials, how tos and updates. Posts under TDIS are usually more casual and personal.

(Image via Colherada cultural )